Review: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

There has been a lot of buzz about this book by Delia Owens going back on two years now.  The book's protagonist is Catherine - but she goes by Kya and is known in her small town as "The Marsh Girl" - who has lived and grown up in the marshes of North Carolina alone since she was a small girl.  Kya didn't attend schools and was taught to read and do math by another local boy named Tate, who befriended her.  Intertwined with the story of Kya's life growing up without family, there is a murder mystery and, ultimately a trial to contend with.

Delia Owens is a trained zoologist and it shows in her descriptions of the marshes that Kya inhabits as well as the animals that Kya observes and writes about.  Owens' language and how she writes is so evocative and the story that she weaves combined with the language itself hooked me from the beginning.  I couldn't put the book down and it was one of those books that literally took me two days from start to finish to read simply because I had to read it. I felt like I was transported to the marshes of North Carolina's Outer Banks with Kya.

This was also one of the few books that have made me cry.  Kya has such a raw deal and a raw story and her abandonment by all those she cares for was just profoundly sad.  And yet, she managed to rise above it all and, to some degree, find her own success on her own terms.

This book is a must read and, while Owens isn't a trained novelist, I look forward to more novels from her. 

The Education of an Idealist by Smantha Power

For those of you who know, on some level, who Samantha Power is, the above picture could be both informational and brilliant or absolutely confusing. Most recently, Ms. Power gained notoriety for being the Ambassador to the UN for the United States. She served from 2013-2017, preceding Governor Haley, and for the Obama administration.  However,  she began her career as a journalist covering the war in the Balkans.  This book, her fourth and most recent, is a memoir about her life beginning during her childhood in Ireland and ending with her last days as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

Sometimes, I don't know why I pick up autobiographies written by politicians because I find parts of them to be completely and utterly boring and self serving.  Nothing changed with this particular memoir/autobiography.  The most trying parts of the book involved Power's description of political theory, use of statistics and attempts to justify the steps that were taken by the political administration that she was serving during her career.  I already understand the theories and the maneuvering and could have done without the additional education.  It was trying and skimmable.

I found myself immensely intrigued by her descriptions of trips to various parts of the world, her attempts and struggles to balance work, life and being a mother and her descriptions of her life in Ireland, as an immigrant, her education in college and then her time as a journalist.  I really wanted to learn more about her as a person and in this area, Ms. Powers delivered a home run (baseball is her favorite sport!).  Ms. Powers is a very intelligent and driven woman that is someone to look up to based upon how her life has developed.  I really enjoyed these parts of her book. I found that she was very open and vulnerable and honest, which was impressive considering what she was putting out there.  The feelings that she admitted having are ones that are all too familiar to me and are, perhaps, also very familiar to other people as well - anxiety, self doubt, shame - and she puts it out there.  I also admire that she was and is still very driven.

So, while I absolutely wish that I had just skipped the political theory sections, I enjoyed the rest of the book tremendously and hope that one day, I may meet Ms. Powers.  SHe seems like someone that I could have a few beers with and laugh with.

Amazon Jeff's Big Discovery

Author Ofer Shapira has hit a home run in this charming children's picture book. Jeff is a deer that lives in the Amazon and he faces a challenge that all of us struggle with, sometimes at multiple times in our lives. Jeff is trying to figure out who he is and what he is good at. Jeff also very much wants a new challenge in his life, so with his mother's and his friend's support, he sets out to try new things in the hopes of achieving his dual goals.

Jeff encounters many of his friends during the course of the book. He finds that himself attempting to growl and roar with Leo, the lion king, trying to fly with Robin and Jay and trying to sing, sway and howl with Wolf. Jeff comes across a busy bee and a bear that has hibernated the winter away. During the course of his interactions with these friends, Jeff has a moment of self-realization and finds something that he is good at doing as well as something that he also happens to enjoy doing.

The message that it's perfectly acceptable to not know who you are as a person as well as what you're good at is extremely valuable for the children reading the book. The book normalizes this and encourages the young reader to explore their talents and skills and what they enjoy, particularly with their parents, guardians or the person that they are reading the book with. At the end of the book, Mr. Shapira even provides space for readers to list skills that they are good at, which is a tremendously useful and convenient tool. I also enjoyed the pictures in the book. They related well to the book itself and I found myself smiling at them, particularly at the ones of the wolves. It is obvious that a lot of effort went into not only developing the story for children, but also in illustrating the book in an appropriate way.

Children will absolutely love the characters and the pictures in this book while learning a valuable lesson (or two!) that they can carry with them throughout their lives. This is a book that you must get immediately to read to the children in your life!

Symphony NH Americana Christmas

Last night, I had the absolute privilege of going to see the New Hampshire Symphony play their holiday concert nearby.  I have seen the Boston Pops do their holiday show, but I'm embarassed to say that I have never seen the New Hampshire before last night.  I was so impressed by the concert but I was perhaps most impressed by their co-act: An Act of Congress. I do like Americana music, so I probably was already pre-disposed to liking them but I was completely blown away by how GOOD it all sounded together.  There were a number of traditionally played symphonic tunes  but then collaborations that moved me.

I found myself driving home feeling so revived and feeling like I had had a really cathartic moment.  I felt that I had energy where I had been feeling the lethargy and stress of a particularly dark time of year.  It's not going to start getting lighter again until December 21 after all.  This gave me hope.  

They have many, many good takes on traditional holiday songs but they also have many original tunes as well.  They played one or two of their original pieces and closed the show with a quiet and unplugged version of a song and I literally was just moved beyond belief.  Please go give them a listen.  Totally worth it.

Biggish news I guess

If you're a regular here, you know that I love reading and I enjoy writing and I also enjoy sharing that passion with other people as well. I now have a variety of ways that I can assist you in your own ventures.  Please feel free to visit my gigs here and let me know your thoughts!

Writing Prompt

I wasn't quite sure WHAT to call this so I called it what it is - a writing prompt. :)

The artist walked in with a confidence that only those with a quirk and some degree of social ignorance could walk in with.  It was almost as if he didn't know that he was different and that's what made him confident because if he knew he was different, he would most assuredly know that he should be embarrassed by his social awkwardness.  He was dressed as you would imagine he would be dressed.  He had long, dark woolen pants - they were perfect for the New York City winters when the avenues and streets with their tall skyscrapers acted as wind tunnels.  The cold and wet snow and freezing rain would never penetrate those pants.  He was wearing black, wing tipped shoes that had recently been polished. I couldn't tell what kind of socks that he was wearing, but I would have put my money on wool argyle but not the thick wool - wool that was thin enough that they would fit into those fancy shoes of his.  He had on a genuine wool Peacoat and a scarf that made the other people that worked at the gallery wonder as to whether he was as straight as we had all heard that he was.

In his hands, he carried a very large painting. It was nearly impossible for him to carry alone and I wondered at how he managed to carry it to the gallery from wherever it was that he was coming from. It was very well protected - the elements weren't getting to that either - and people were buzzing around it and him without any qualms about showing him that he was "special."

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

There has been a lot of buzz about this book and for good reason.  For some reason, I thought that it was a work of fiction, but to my (pleasant!) surprise, it is a work of non-fiction focused on the sex lives of three very different women from different parts of the United States.  Lisa Taddeo even says that she struggled to find these women - she drove across the country six times! It takes place in the current decade. The women are different from each other - Maggie (in her 20's and working class), Sloane (upper class, lives in Newport RI and owns a business), and Lina (in her 30's and living in Indiana). Lina has rekindled a relationship with a (married) high school sweetheart after her marriage has ended.  Maggie is suffering from the fallout of a relationship with a married teacher that she had when she was in high school, including a trial and earning the hatred of a divided community. Sloane and her husband are middle aged swingers that own a restaurant in Newport. The common thread seems to be that the women are struggling to be sexual, to be desired and not to be hated.  They don't seem to have their own sexual agency and all three seem to be punished without experiencing the pleasure that they want.

I found all of the women's stories compelling - Maggie's in particular was heart wrenching.  She, by her own account, was an at risk teenager with parents who were alcoholics.  She confided in her teacher who then began to groom her and begin an inappropriate relationship with her. Maggie's story and the trial were all too real to me - it happens everyday in our criminal justice system where women like Maggie have suffered and then aren't vindicated by a guilty verdict. And she still suffers the ramifications - she drops out of college and is working a dead end job as a food service worker. She also suffers extreme depression and anxiety.

I think I was perhaps  most interested in Sloane's story because it's not something that I would ever choose for myself. Sloane and her husband were always open about their sexual lives and Sloane and he seemed to participate in this lifestyle healthily with open communication. The crux of Sloane's story was that a partner to their bed wasn't as open with his own partner (with whom he was in a long term relationship and had children) as Sloane and her husband had been led to believe. When the partner's wife finds out, the blame falls squarely on Sloane as the woman in the relationship, even though Sloane's husband was the one that encouraged her to engage in the liason.

I generally really enjoyed this book. It was a quick and interesting read, although it generally left me pessimistic about women having any degree of sexual agency that doesn't carry some blowback or punishment or shaming.  Highly recommended.

Liza

SHe was surprised that she had been invited to the mansion on the North Shore of Long Island, right outside of the city, for the party.  She wasn't normally included in the rich, flapper set that listened to the jazz that had overtaken the country or danced the Charleston that seemed to be the current craze.  But she was excited to go, if only to watch people dance, talk and imbibe too much.  And who knew?  Maybe she would meet the man, or woman, of her dreams.

Liza knew that she was an anomaly in this day and age.  She kissed both boys and girls with impunity and no one seemed to care unless it was one of those Prohibitionists left over from an earlier age or her mother.  This was why she had left her home in the country outside of Saratoga and taken the train to New York. Her mother would be suitably mortified to learn that she was living in a boarding house with other women in Brooklyn and taking the Subway into Lower Manhatten to her job as a receptionist in a large law firm.  Maybe one day, she would be promoted to legal assistant. A few of the girls were due to get married to she may actually have a chance when they left.

Liza took one last look in the full length mirror that she kept in her room at the boarding house.  All things considered, she enjoyed the styles of the 20's - the dress she wore had straps and hung loosely on her curvy frame.  When she twirled around, the hem of the dress flew around.  She liked how the waistline of the dress was close to her hips. Liza had always hated the constricting dresses that her mother had made her wear when she was living with the rest of the family. She loved the sequins on it and how the dress sparkled in the light. It gave her a sense of wonder, excitement and anticipation as to what the night may hold.

As she gazed at herself in the mirror, Liza heard a honk outside.  She glanced out the open window and saw a pale yellow convertible belonging to Nick idling at the curb, with Nick driving and her cousin, Ella, in the passenger seat.

"Come on you silly goose," yelled Ella as she leaned out of the car.  "We're already running late and you know how bad that traffic is on the Expressway!"

Liza grabbed her mink stole from the bed, burst through the door to her room and clattered down the stairs, pell mell, nearly knocking over Mrs. Tully, the proprietess, in her haste.

Why I Like the Walking Dead

So, for those of you that haven't figured it out yet, I have a penchant for dystopian fiction.  In large part, it's because I find that it's the most effective way to critique things that are going on in our society currently. And with the way certain parts of the world are going, it's eerily and scarily imaginable - not that there will be a zombie apocalypse soon (hardly - I hope. ;) ) but societies passing certain laws that make the country more of a religious then secular state.  So it shouldn't be any surprise that I enjoy The Walking Dead.

For those of you that don't know, TWD started as a comic book series created by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore , and which focuses on Rick Grimes, a deputy that awakes from a coma after he has been shot only to learn that his world has tremendously changed and he struggles to figure out why. AMC eventually developed an insanely popular TV show that was based on the comics - although I think that at some point it begins to diverge from the comics.  This blog post focuses on the show. 

I love the show because I think that it is a treatise on humanity and what happens to it when people are thrown into survival situations.  While there are definitely times you feel absolutely devastated that some people become what they are, ultimately there are moments of redemption in which you see how other people recognize each other as family. 

Best Book of October

In October, I read four books - eek - I usually read more but whatever and I didn't review all of them because two of the books were sequels to a book and wouldn't have provided any new insights really. Of those three, the best one that I read was, without a doubt, Zafon's The Angel's Game (my review can be found here).

I still really love Zafon's writing style and the types of books that he writes as well as the plots of the stories that he writes. The translations are masterful - they are originally written in Spanish, and one day I hope to read the books in the native language.

What is the best book you read this month? Let me know in comments, or write your own post and link up below!

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Click here to enter

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I know that I said I didn't want to read anything completely depressing or disturbing or post-apocalyptic BUT my son is reading these books and I want to be able to talk to him about them. I read them years ago when they came out and honestly, remembered the first one pretty well, but not the subsequent books, so I'm re-reading them now so that I may be able to talk to my son about them. They're SUPER quick reads - I read this one in about 1.5 days - so I don't feel too badly reading them and the best part is that I get to talk to my kid about them.

The Hunger Games is a Young Adult book that was written maybe ten years or so ago - and the movies catapulted Jennifer Lawrence to fame. It is a dystopian Young Adult book where the world is post-apocalyptic for lack of a better way of describing it. The novel takes place in the United States and the country is governed by an authoritarian regime that has divided the country into 13 Districts. Each district is known for something - District 12, where our main characters hail from - is Appalachia and is known, therefore, for coal mining.  Young people - children anywhere from 10 through 18 - are forced to compete in the annual Hunger Games tournament, where they have to kill each other in order to win basic necessities for their respective districts.  The whole point is to remind the inhabitants of the punishment that they must endure for rebelling in previous years.  The main character - Katniss - volunteers to be the tribute from District 12 so that her younger sister Prim doesn't have to go. The rest of the novel follows Katniss as she tries to stay alive during the Hunger Games.

This is a typical Young Adult novel.  I generally enjoyed it but am now surprised that it was geared towards the age group that it was, and deals with the topics that it does.  Literally, the age group the novel was written for is reading about their peers killing each other off for entertainment of rich government types.  It's not a book I would let my child read alone, obviously. Read along and talk about the themes with your reader on this one!  I generally liked it. It moved quickly and really hooks you.  Definitely read it but tread with caution with your child as it is VERY intense.

Lyle

I first met Lyle the summer when I was on the North Shore in Massachusetts.  Until recently, Rockport had been a dry town, even though selling alcohol would have made the local eateries a lot of money from the tourists during the summer and the locals during the long winters, when the nights were long, dark and quiet. Once the town decided to start selling alcohol, the locals came out of the woodwork but none so much as Lyle and his two buddies.

Lyle was famous - infamous actually.  He and his red "Make America Great Again" hat were practically permanent fixtures in the seafood joint a block away from the one bedroom apartment he shared with the girlfriend 20 years his junior.  I never understood why she was with him and she never explained it to me.  Lyle didn't seem to have money and with the amount he drank, he was unlikely to do much in bed besides snore loudly and keep her awake.

I met him on a Saturday afternoon in late June.  I was in the middle of a two week sabbatical from my policy wonk job in a northern, landlocked, mountainous city and was enjoying the sun, white wine, early morning runs and the company.  I had wanted to do some writing, but nothing was forthcoming so instead, I spent my time reading, doing long training runs in anticipation of a half-marathon in the fall, and observing the people around me.

My attention was immediately drawn to Lyle in large part because of the bright red hat that he wore.  Die-hard, proud Republicans were few and far between in what we Northern New Englanders called "The People's Republic of Massachusetts." He was wearing a wrinkled white golf shirt and white shorts, that contrasted with the almost offensively bright red of his hat and face. His personality was bigger than his physical being - he wasn't much taller than my 5 foot 2 frame but his chi took up nearly all of the space around him.

Lyle was old, but in a well-preserved way likely due to the embalming effects of the quantity of alcohol that he drank - which seemingly was by the gallon.  When I first met him that mid-afternoon, he was already half in the bag and bragging about how he had been drinking since mid-morning to celebrate how the Red Sox were 2 games up on the Yankees and how Trump's approval rating was at its peak - the impeachment scandal was not on anyone's radar at that time.

Lyle was loud and I could hear him over the low din that was a busy bar in a tourist beach town during the summer.  Luckily, he was with Lou and Sam - a trio that affectionately called themselves the Three Amigos after the Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short comedic tag team.  There was a distinct space around them, as if the tourists knew not to come too close or they would become targets of what they instinctively knew would be a local's ire at having to share their watering hole with the people that kept the town afloat.

"Do you think that I would be able to get a word in edgewise with that one," I asked my wine sipping partner, also a local.  "He seems like he'd be a fascinating one to talk to, his political judgment aside."

My drinking partner snorted and looked at me dubiously.  "Good luck with that. I'd pay to have your car detailed if you so much as got him to even answer a question coherently," he said, in a tone of voice that was laden with doubt.

Never one to turn down a challenge, particularly where a much needed car detailing was on the line, I responded "It's on," as I got up and sidled down to the other end of the bar.  And boy did I learn some stuff....

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

I enjoyed Sullivan's novel, Commencement, so I wanted to try this novel by her and it has the added benefit of taking place in areas that I'm familiar with and have visited. 

In this novel, we meet at least three generations of Kelleher women that all have strong, strong personalities that make them both resilient and difficult to get along with.  Alice is the matriarch of the family who has no qualms about calling her granddaughter a tramp during an argument and then laying into her granddaughter's mother (yes, Alice's own daughter!). Kathleen, another of the Kelleher women, is a recovering alcoholic who moved to California with her partner and became a worm farmer.  The family owns a compound in Cape Neddick that Alice has decided to majorly change and all hell breaks loose as a result.

Please don't think that this is a "beach" book.  It's not because firstly, it's 500 pages, which I absolutely love.  I love big books and I can't lie. It's about Catholicism and how each generation has viewed it and internalized it, or not. It looks at how Catholicism has impacted or fostered guilt and how the family lives. The secret that this family harbors that impacts the generations and how Sullivan demonstrates that is masterful and ruthless at the same time.  It's such a work of absolute genius.

Sullivan alternated between four narrators and I found this to be a very effective way to convey flaws, secrets and to forward the plot as well as the themes.  I don't know how else she could have done so in a novel such as this. Quite frankly, I love how the book is written from the perspectives of four women and how it's about women's lives.  While there are more and more books like this nowadays, not many are as effective as this one in conveying not only the "in your face themes" but also the subtle nuances and pressures that women often put on each other.  

This books is a must read. 

What Should I Read Next?

I recently read a blog post about reading books that are outside of your comfort zone and how this particular blogger found herself consistently reading the same sort of book and it got me to thinking.  I looked at my reading history and found that I definitely read the same sorts of books: feminist dystopian fiction, dystopian fiction, biography and memoir, gender studies, history, literature that deals with toxic (OK, dysfunctional and f***** up families) people and relationships as a way of making a point about society.  I don't learn anything that I really don't already know. It's not pushing me to learn anything new.  I read because yes, I enjoy it VERY much but I read because I like to learn.  It's very satisfying to me.  And I can't do that with reading the same sorts of books over and over again.

So, in that vein, I am looking for reading recommendations.  What should I read next?  I DO have one request though. Because of my job, I'm looking to avoid legal commentary right now.  I use reading also to re-charge my brain after a long day of work in the legal community and I would prefer to use my limited free time to do something besides that. Please put your thoughts into the comments. 

I cannot WAIT to see what everyone puts in the comments!

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruis Zafon

I first fell in love with Zafon earlier this year when I read The Shadow of the Wind, Zafon's most famous work, as translated into English. I bought the next installment in the series, The Angel's Game, right away in spite of my better judgement (at the time!) because I have a history of not enjoying subsequent books in the series.  And I'm glad that I did.

The novel is about David Martin, a young man born into poverty into Barcelona and his desire to be a master storyteller and novel writer. At the start of the novel, David is living in a boarding house and is writing penny, murder mysteries for a sketchy duo of publishers that have, essentially, enslaved him. He then receives an invitation from a mysterious Parisian publisher and eventually meets the publisher, who is well-dressed, well educated and well spoken and, as the Mafia is wont to do, who makes David an offer he can't refuse. David has learned that he has a terminal brain tumor right around the time that he accepts the proposal and accepts the proposal in large part because this mysterious publisher has promised that David will live if David writes the novel. David begins the research for the book and becomes slowly consumed by the process, descending into a complex mix of mystery and gothic.

The book started slowly.  There is a lot of laying the groundwork and there are also parts where Zafon is laying the plot and religious and historical groundwork for the action that occurs in the second half of the book.  There is no doubt in my mind that Zafon is a master storyteller in any language.  I read the English translation and it was a divine story and translation.  I was engaged in large part because the book is about characters that love everything about books: reading them, writing them, consuming them at any cost.  And Zafon's style is wonderful.  I thoroughly enjoyed all parts of this book.  

Local Bookstores Rock!

So, I read this story in The Guardian and it made me so happy.  Jeff Kinney is most famous for writing The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. My son absolutely loves them.  It turns out that his love for books extends to selling them in independent bookstores too - he opened up (or helped to open up) a bookstore in Massachusetts.  It's a little less than 90 minutes from here, on a good day, so I'm considering bringing the kids there because both of them like the Wimpy Kids books.  But that's not the purpose of this post.

I love me a good independent bookstore.  I've always been a reader so that shouldn't be a surprise, but most people don't know that I have my own brand of tourism.  In each place I go to, I try to visit the city's or locale's independent bookstore if one has them.  It started when I was in Portland, Oregon for work and one of my co-workers suggested I visit Powell's, which I of course did, at 7 months pregnant and waddling.  It was the best thing I had ever done and I haven't stopped since and it's been 12 years (well, nearly - I was pregnant with my son).

Anyways, I am looking forward to seeing this new store.  My favorite local indies are:

1. Gibson's in Concord.  So dangerous when I used to work in Concord.
2. The Toadstool in Milford.

Please, please, please pay them a visit.  

The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo

I don't remember where I heard about this book but I remember thinking that it came highly recommended and, because it was written by an author that got her MFA from the University of Iowa - a prestigious place - I was hopeful.

Ms. Lombardo's first novel spans many generations - at least four that I could count - that center around a marriage that has lasted for around 40 years give or take. The couple at the center of the marriage forms the hub of the novel. We also meet the couples' four daughters - the eldest two of whom are "Irish twins," and the younger two seeming to live in their wake. The book takes place in Chicago and its suburbs - hardly unusual considering the homeplace of the author - and begins in 2000 when the oldest daughter, Wendy, an unabashed money chaser, is getting married to an older and wealthier man. Don't get me wrong - this isn't a 55 year old marrying a 25 year old.  It seems that Wendy loves him very, very much. That being said, the novel takes place over four seasons, often interspersed with flashbacks that bring us up to speed with regards to the drama that inhabits the family.

The writing is VERY good, don't get me wrong. But I did find myself rolling my eyes a lot over the course of the novel. It's VERY white, VERY heteronormative and VERY economically non challenging.  The novel is a treatise on first world problems.  Seriously. And it's depressing in its first worldness. So much talent from an author seemingly wasted. There are the predictable issues:  stay at home mom with a law degree who opted out, surprise pregnancies and single parenthood, youngest child angst, blindsided and alcoholic widows.  How much more stereotypically upper middle class/upper class American can you get?!

The book was also very long - about 150 pages too long honestly. It was very, very repetitive and too neatly tied up at the end.  A family with that much baggage can't have such a simple and neat tie up at the end. Seriously.  

You can skip this one, promise, but I hope that Ms. Loombardo writes a second novel that I can give a shot because I think that she has some serious promise, even if I didn't particularly care for this first novel.  

Celebrate Banned Books Week!

I love Banned Books Week - but I'm a complete and utter book nerd and reader.  Banned Books Week was created in 1982 by a - shocker - librarian and now has the American Library Association as its biggest sponsor. It draws attention to books that are banned and challenged in the United States. This year, the week runs from September 22-September 28.

What I love is that this holiday draws attention to a lot of things that I absolutely value.  It celebrates individuality and the ability to choose what you consume, without the government or some other entity or person telling you that you can't consume that. It allows you to consume anything, even the unpopular things.  It helps to foster communication - what better way to talk about values, ideas, cultures and other things that are important to you than to talk about them in the form of books and what you've read?! It also stresses the value of having many different viewpoints and fosters the ability to think critically about those viewpoints.

Some of my favorite banned books include:  The Handmaid's Tale, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Bridge to Terebithia and The Catcher in the Rye.

Happy reading!

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

This book was, perhaps, the most highly anticipated release of September, 2019 if not the entire year. I am a huge Margaret Atwood fan and so for me, this was the most anticipated release as well.  

This novel is the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian novel that Atwood wrote in the mid-80's and which describes a religious overthrow of the United States government and then subsequent life under the new religious regime. In that regime, women are treated explicitly terribly with women being subjected to ritualized sexual assault by powerful men in the hopes that they get pregnant and with women essentially otherwise being stripped of all economic, political and other rights.  This novel takes place about 15 years after the incidents described in Atwood's previous novel.

In this novel, there are three narrators:  Aunt Lydia, one teen who has grown up in Gilead and one teenager who has grown up in Canada, observing Gilead and experiencing Canada's response to the religious regime to the South. Aunt Lydia's narrative really drives the book and while she's so terrifying still, I was excited about it. She had such a huge and scary roll in the first novel. I loved that I learned her origin story and, on some level, she appealed to the survivor in me (and I think other readers) because she seems to say that we become almost reptilian in our responses to stressful times (hello, flight, freeze or fight anyone?!). I enjoyed Lydia's portions of the novel more than I enjoyed the other girls' parts of the novel - although they were important in driving the novel forward.  I was just more curious about Lydia and what drives her. 

So, it's been widely discussed about how collaboration can and is used in order to make sure that certain groups of people remain oppressed. This collaboration can be intentional - like slavery - or it can be more unconscious.  The Testaments is very strong in showing how different forms of collaboration are used to keep women and girls oppressed - in both Gilead and in Canada (which represents a country governed by the Democratic Process).

I really liked this book.  I intend to read it again in order to appreciate the more nuanced portions of it instead of reading it to experience it.  Totally worth it.

The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger

We all know how society is now - in America at least with its first world problems related to magnet schools and education (#firstworldproblems anyone?!) - but it's so easy to overlook the passive (or in some cases not so passive) competitiveness of parenting and education and to shove it into the back of your mind.  How often have you (or myself for that matter) found myself thinking: "That's totally not me?"  Well, this book doesn't let you get away with that and for that reason, I loved it.

This book also couldn't have come at a better time:  we learned of stars like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin buying their children spaces at prestigious universities, resulting in the arrest and prosecution of said celebrities.This novel revolves around a very similar and comical version of it. The action all revolves around a fictional Colorado town where the protagonists are all addicted to privilege and hoarding it. The town has found out that it is getting a school for the "gifted" and the main theme is that the children of these elite should get in, not on their own merit or gifts, but because they are simply the children of the elite. There is a group of four female friends that form the core of the elite circle that Holsinger satirizes. These women all met at a baby swim class - how typical.

All four have a child that they believe and hope will get into this school. Two will lie and cheat their children into the school.

I found the book to be useful in the sense that it draws attention to things that are going on currently.  But honestly? I found the book to be so overtly predictable and stereotypical that it was downright boring. It also moved along at a snail's pace.  I mean really?  300+ pages is not needed for a story like this.  It just wasn't a book that I was particularly fond of.  

My top book podcasts

So it shouldn't be a shock to you that I am passionate about reading, books and all things bookish.  I am an unabashed lover of reading and am also not shy in telling people that I'm an absolute geek. I get an immense amount of satisfaction out of geek culture - reading specifically - but I can appreciate a good piece of Star Wars fanfic when I come across it (yes, I'm more Star Wars than Trekkie but I will take Buffy over both any day).

Anyways, one of the geek culture things that I love engaging in are podcasts. These are shows that are literally about anything and can be as professionally done as any radio show but can also be a person recording an episode on their phone. And they are on every topic under the sun. I love listening to podcasts- they are food for my brain - and books/reading is a main topic of some of the podcasts that I listen to. I have come across a few in my day but there are some that you absolutely have to listen to. They're listed below = please subscribe and rate them positively:

1. The BookRiot Podcast - firstly, BookRiot is a readers' wet dream.  Go there immediately to read their blog if nothing else.  The podcast is just amazing.

2. Modern Mrs. Darcy has a podcast called "What Should I Read Next" that is to DIE for.  Um, anyone who has a blog called Modern Mrs. Darcy though?  Come ON readers - need I say more?! Surf on over there.

3. Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books - Zibby Owens hosts this podcast in addition to being a mom of four and a writer. Can you say badass?!  Get it done and go over there!


What bookish podcasts do you listen to?!

The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz

Lisbeth Salander is one of my all time favorite fictional characters (as is Ellen Ripley quite frankly). So even though the original author is no longer with us (RIP Stieg Larsson!), I love Lisbeth enough to stick it out.

In this book, we continue with Lisbeth as she dukes it out with her Russian mafia allied sister while also helping Mikael B. (as I affectionately call him) solve an ancillary mystery that has nothing to do with Lisbeth's thirst for revenge. In particular, Mikael is attempting to solve the mysteries related to a climb up Mount Everest.

I don't feel like I can give much more away without ruining the book because a large part of these books is the slow unfolding of the plot.  What I an say is that I really missed Salander's physical presence. She's so awesome and so badass that only having her kind of sort of present was a bummer. I was also way more intrigued by Mikael's storyline than Lisbeth's - which just seemed old.  I found myself saying - oh just get ON with it.  IF this really were Lisbeth it would have been done with already in a cold and calculating way and clean too. Unlike with the previous books, I didn't find myself gripped and could have easily walked away from the book and not shed a tear about it.

If you're going to start anywhere with Lisbeth, start with the original trilogy.   Just like Star Wars, the originals contain something that subsequent  books have yet to capture. 

My TBR List for September 2019

I recently saw this post over at Never Enough Novels and thought I would join in.  I have a few books on my TBR pile this month - I'm usually very ambitious - likely that my eyes are bigger than the time that I have to actually read.  There are a few books that I really, really, really am looking forward to getting through this month:

1. The Girl Who Lived Twice - Millenium #6 - yes, this is the Lisbeth Salander series that carried on after the tragic death of the original author and yes, I've remained loyal even though it isn't quite the same.

2. The Black Ice - by Michael Connelly and featuring Harry Bosch.  The second book in the series. While I do have two series going on, it's actually quite hard to get Harry confused with Lisbeth. Ha!

3. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.  I love Margaret Atwood - she's my all time favorite and The Handmaid's Tale is one of my favorite novels - so this could be either a really awesome sequel or a complete flop, a la Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird). Atwood is so awesome though that I am confident she'll knock it out of the park.

I will likely read more than these, but these three gems are the ones that I want to get through.

Black Echo by Michael Connelly

So, let's talk about Harry Bosch. I first got into this because of the Amazon original series, Bosch. One of my friends recommended that I watch it when I needed something to watch in the (limited) downtime that I had and boy were they ever right. I don't know if  it's because I have a thing for the actor that plays Bosch - he nails the role - or just a thing for cops but it hooked me. I also really love True Crime and crime books in general so this seemed like a complete natural for me.

For those of you that don't know, the main character is Harry Bosch, a Vietnam war vet and tunnel rat. We are introduced to him in this book and he, in his current iteration, is a homicide detective with the LAPD. In this particular book, the death of a fellow tunnel rat has drawn Bosch's attention. Bosch thinks it's tied to a robbery that uses underground tunnels.

I don't want to give away too much more of the plot because that's the whole point of crime fiction right?  But the character of Bosch is so attractive to me.  He's so multi-layered. He's a loner that wants some company and loves jazz and good art and can shoot a gun and doesn't give a frig about anything (at least on the surface! Deep down I'm convinced he's a softy). And ultimately, he's one of THE most realistic and perfectly flawed protagonists I've ever seen and I love him and Michael Connelly for creating him like this. I loved that Connelly knew enough about police work to be able to combine the differences in police and state procedurals and do so in a way that wasn't heavy handed at all.  There is also humor in this novel in spite of the ultimately very serious subject matter but it's dry and subtle and I really believe you have to be in the know to get it.

I'm already reading the second book in the series. SO good. Grab it!

Farenheit 451 by Ray Badbury

I have always had a thing for dystopian fiction, dating back to middle school when we had to read Animal Farm by George Orwell (8th Grade honors English - Mr. Borman!). I make no bones about it - The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood is one of my favorite books of all time. These dark books always fascinated me in some deep way.  I remember reading Farenheit 451 as well but thought that it warranted a re-read, particularly in the troubling times that we currently live in, so I picked it up again.

For those of you that don't know, Ray Bradbury wrote and had this book published in 1953. Bradbury is writing about a society that looks to be American at some point in the near future. In this society, books are outlawed and firemen are the people that go out and burn the books that are found in the hopes that society will eradicate them. The protagonist is Guy Montag, a fireman who becomes severely disillusioned with his role of burning books and with the banning of books to begin with.

I can see why people love this book:  it takes on themes of voyeurism, censorship and what it means to be a "true believer" in a job.  It also takes on themes of government thought control and groupthink at its worst.  In the period when it was written - right after the Nazis and World War II - I think that these things were very much on people's minds in a different context then they are now.  I think that then, Americans were likely to read the book and apply it to the people "over there" in Europe, across the ocean, who had let themselves be swayed by Mussolini or Hitler, whereas I think today people may read this book and internalize it to America more.

The measure of a brilliant book, in my mind, is a book that you can read at different points in your life but which is still relevant today and which you can read and re-read at various points in your life, yet still take something away.  Farenheit 451 is one of those books.  In 1953 when it came out, it acted as a tool in which to discuss the political occurrences and a terrible war that occurred overseas. And yet, it is still as relevant today as it was back then.  It is a brilliant tool with which to discuss the themes and challenges that we have on both macro and micro levels of our own society.  And that is why it such an important and magnificent work.

Kudos Mr. Bradbury.  May your book be read continuously by future generations.  

Why Shopping Local is a Value I Have

I know that this isn't strictly a review, but it's tangentially related, I promise. On Thursday, I went to an amazing and inspiring event at the LaBelle Winery in Amherst, NH. It was called "She Built This" and was put on by Kristen Hardwick (the badass photographer that took our photos for my real life job) - and Emily Aborn.  This was the second annual panel discussion featuring three female entrepreneurs.  This year, the panelists were Rebecca Hamilton (who owns Badger Balm and Machina Arts), Jennifer Desrosiers (who owns Laney and Lu) and Jessica Terzakis.  Jennifer also owns an adventure company.

It was such a good event and while there, I saw one of my favorite vendors - Her Tribe Athletics.

Anyways it got me really thinking about the importance of supporting local vendors and local businesses.  Whenever I go to a new city, I really make an effort to visit a local bookstore and buy something.  And I actually really feel good about doing so because, on some level, while I did realize how much of a help that one purchase may be, I don't think I truly appreciated the blood, sweat and tears that went into creating this business.  There's a certain drive and commitment that it takes to do something like this and rewarding  person with my business, especially another woman, is vitally important to me.

On that note, I wanted to say the following:  I love Her Tribe Athletics.  I buy from her as much as I can. I love her clothing. I love her messaging, and she's at all the races that I run. Rock on sistah!

Over the last few months I have had to access local services and I can't say enough of them. My car needed some work lately and I utilized Merrimack Auto Center.  I left a message requesting an appointment - I suspected there were  brake issues - and they got me in first thing on a Monday morning and I had a car that felt like new that afternoon.  They were the true consummate professionals (and had two VERY sweet dogs that I got to love on while I waited!). The second service I had to utilize was when my fridge started to go - I needed someone to come in to take a look at and repair it.  I used Derry Repair - Fred came out after his sweet wife scheduled the appointment for me and my fridge was good to go right after. Fred was the type of repair person that I would trust to come into my home for all of my appliance repairs when I wasn't home.  He was quick, affordable and I have no issues to date.

It's so important to support your neighbors.  

Sabrina and Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Who says that Young Adult books aren't good and shouldn't be read by actual adults?  If anyone, then they are flat out wrong and this is one of the books that proves that.

This is a debut short story collection about Hispanic or Native American Women, or both, living in Denver, Colorado (which is a character of each story in and of itself!) - 11 stories in all. All of these women seemed so real that I honestly thought, initially, that these short stories were memoir based and were about real experiences that Fajardo-Anstine had herself!  I also think that, in large part, many of the plots are so real life that we've either lived some version ourselves or know someone that has lived it. 

For instance, in the title story, we learn about the close relationship and then falling out of two cousins: Sabrina and Corina and the struggles that one of them has with alcohol and substances. We all know or have experienced this: “By our mid-twenties, I saw Sabrina less and less. She worked nights. I worked days. She moved a few times and I lost track of her addresses, the names of her friends, the men she dated, the bars she tended. She rarely went to family dinners, but when she did, she was puffy-eyed and sallow-skinned, her slinky tops always falling off her shoulders."   But we haven't experienced was having to do that same cousin's makeup for her wake. 

I loved how Ms. Fajardo-Anstine takes on and writes about such hard things in such a matter of fact and yet beautifully delicate way that you can't help but just sigh even when the experiences are so bleak. I grew to admire the women that she wrote about because they prevailed in spite of or simply because of it all and had an inner strength, a grit, that most people don't have. Definitely well worth the time to read this book - the multiple times I read this book 

Nickel Boys By Colson Whitehead

The first book I read by Colson Whitehead was Sag Harbor and it was because I too spent loads of time in Sag Harbor, but not the area that Colson did. Even way back then, when he was brand new, I was intoxicated by his writing and I still am. I was so proud of him when he was winning prizes for The Underground Railroad, but I honestly liked earlier novels by him better (although his foray into the Zombie apocalypse was surprising).

Nickel Boys is h is most recent book and it's making waves, exactly as it should. It is based on a school that actually existed in Florida called the Dozier School and the novel itself focuses on acts of abuse that occurs at the fictionalized version of the school, the Nickel School. The Dozier School was operated for about a century before it closed after it had been exposed as a den of torture for the young boys that went there. Whitehead's novel opens with an announcement similar to one that occurred in real life with regards to the Dozier School: that the State of Florida was going to excavate the school grounds for more bodies buried in unmarked graves. In Nickel Boys, students have found numerous bodies with caved in skulls, buckshot marks and other severe injuries that lead to much suspicion and more heartache, particularly for the boys that survived the torture meted out at the school.

The hero of the novel is a boy named Elwood Curtis, a teenager who lives alone with his mother and is one of the most earnest characters that I have ever come across. He is smart and hard working and (of course) has his future brightly before him.  Elwood is a very earnest student of the Civil Rights Movement and MLK, Jr. in particular. He loves the Civil Rights movement so much that a record of a speech given by MLK, Jr. is his most prized possession and he plays it repeatedly much like another boy his age would play music records.

But Elwood is also really naive.  He's so naive that he almost can't see what is in front of him and why a Civil Rights Movement is so necessary in the first place.  He can't seem to figure out that his moral compass is not shared by the vast majority of people living in the South at this time. Nowhere is this naivete more present then when Elwood is arrested on very flimsy evidence, he's sentenced to the Elwood School and he clings to the belief that the law is going to prevail and his white lawyer will help him.

Elwood's reactions to the systemically horrific abuse is actually more of a focus than the actual abuse itself (although these acts play major roles as well, if just to cause Elwood's reaction). I don't feel that I can get into too much more here without revealing spoilers but I really liked it.

I liked this book much more than Whitehead's other novels, even The Underground Railroad.  It feels more real world and is something that I think people can envision more since the Civil Rights Movement and the abuses that it dealt with are still relatively new in our history.  It also is more scary and difficult in that same vein.  It systematically takes apart not only our hopes about changing the future but really challenges MLK and his theory of love.

You have to read this book. Hands down one of the best books of the year.

Why I Like Happy Valley (Even Though it Isn't Happy)

I started watching Happy Valley because I loved Broadchurch so much and because it had somewhat of a similarity it was recommended to me to watch.  It's a BBC show and many of the actors will be familiar, as they tend to be in the BBC. 

I don't want to give anything away, so I won't get too much into the plotlines but I think it's safe to say that Happy Valley is anything but happy.  It follows the story of a British police Sergeant in a small town in Northern England. What I love about it is how it keeps everything real.  It doesn't pull any punches. The characters aren't unreal in the sense that their reactions to situations aren't contrived.  You can easily see real people in those situations having those exact same reactions. It doesn't shy away from real and difficult and often very, very ugly and traumatic events.  There is a main character this is struggling to keep it all together in a way that normal, everyday people struggle tokeep it together, having normal, everyday reactions.  And while it isn't a touchy, fuzzy or warm rendition of things that ends up tied up nicely with a bow, it's well worth watching and you should be watching it.

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

I love that I 'm tearing up my reviews.  At this rate, I will surpass my expected reading goal of 50 books this year.

My Sister the Serial Killer is the first novel written by Nigerian author Oyinkin Braithwaite and reminds me in many ways of Americanah, also by a fellow Nigerian. One sister, Korede, is a nurse and knows all about blood - its smell, its feel and how to clean it up in large part because she is a nurse but also because her sister, Ayoola is a serial killer that she has had to cover up for in many cases. We learn at the very first that Korede is in a position that she has to cover up for Ayoola's third murder - which she claims was the result of acts of self-defense.

This isn't a crime thriller, like a Tana French novel, but instead takes a critical and analytical eye towards the relationship between Korede and Ayoola and really attempts to pull back layers as to what it means to maintain familial loyalty. She attempts to answer questions such as does loyalty to family members supersede every other moral compass? Are there other principles that are more important? In every instance, their relationship is tested by things such as resentment and jealousy and competition.  Korede is a successful nurse who is competent and "good," in that she has met all of the cultural expectations that have been placed upon her (with the exception of finding a husband). She is diligent and hardworking. Ayoola is seemingly her opposite: flamboyant, beautiful and spontaneous, careless and chronically underemployed or unemployed.  There are no shortage of men that flock to her and during the novel, it became increasingly obvious that Korede felt put upon and resentful of having received no credit where Ayoola received it all, in spite of Korede's achievements.

I loved this book - it was short and quick but felt very appropriate and somewhat Austenian in some circumstances.  I loved the social commentary and questioning that it engaged in and the tone it took - darkly comic and dry.  It made me really think and question the degrees and lengths that people will go to protect family.  Buy this one!

The Scar by Mary Cregan, a review

Unwittingly, I've taken to alternating fiction with non-fiction.  For me, non-fiction is oftentimes easier (depending upon the circumstances - but that is another blog post in and of itself!). I don't quite remember where I got the idea to read this book but in all likelihood it was either NPR or BookRiot or one of the myriad of book review websites that I follow and blogs that I read. 

The Scar by Mary Cregan is part an attempt at recollecting how Mary Cregan came to be depressed and how she dealt with a severe depression but also a history of depression and its treatment itself. Mary's story begins with one of the most, perhaps, tragic events a person can deal with - the death of a newborn child that was completely and utterly unexpected. Mary's daughter, Anna, is born with a congenital heart defect that in all likelihood would be known about now (it was the early 80's when this occurred - a time period in which ultrasound wasn't routine maternal/fetal health care) that is essentially an underdeveloped heart valve. Anna dies within a day of her birth. Many months later, Ms. Cregan attempts suicide, during hospitalization.  I won't go into details here in part because I believe that the rest is Cregan's story to tell but also in part because it is horrific and likely triggering to a reader. After treatment during hospitalization, including ECT, Cregan is ready to work towards a non pathological acceptance of her mental illness.

Cregan uses her memoir to explore depression, its social status (if any), the pathological self-hatred and questioning they feel, their acceptance (or lack of acceptance) by society, the evolution of ECT and SSRI's and more. I really loved Cregan's ability and her courage not only in telling her story but also in publishing it in such an expansive way. I enjoyed how she demonstrates the practicality that someone that is battling mental illness has and that she does it in a completely unabashed way. She confronts topics, like Electro Convulsive Therapy head on and in a way that demonstrates not that she is proud of it, but in a way that shows that she has accepted its usefulness to her and that it isn't a big deal.I loved how she took the fears that society had about ECT and turns them on their heads. 

Crear's use of things like literary and mythological methods of dealing with depression were also quite interesting. I am a person that likes to read about people having similar experiences with things and about they have handled it as well as learning about the things that I'm experiencing so this particular part of Crear's memoir appealed to me on many levels. It felt like I was reading about myself and not only learning about someone who experienced feelings, but also learned about certain topics in their historic context. This was a magnificent book that I would recommend for all.

I'm Back and a Review

Things have been quite hectic in my life so I haven't been blogging lately even though I've been doing a ton of reading.  I started a new job that I enjoy but it takes a lot of time.  That being said, I'm now committed to re-starting review blogging again.  Please enjoy my review below!

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I just finished reading The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu - it's her latest book but not her first, although it is the first book of hers that I have read.  This book takes place at an all girls' camp and focuses on the pre-teen girl perspective. All of the voices that you hear and experience are that of girls as they experience the camp and then age. The girls all come from different socio-economic backgrounds and different ethnic backgrounds, which is a great touch. On an overnight kayaking trip to an island, true personalities come out and alliances constantly shift, Survivor style before Survivor was a thing.

The book opens with a narrative setting the girls at the camp and introducing us to them.  The book then switches between the girls' experiences at camp and chapters that tell us about the campers themselves - where they are from and where they are going. It's hard to switch between the narratives - to me it was VERY jarring.  I enjoyed the chapters about the individual campers the best because Fu gave me perspective as to why the girls acted the way that they did in the situations that they were presented. Fu's character development is NOTHING short of masterful and I found myself enjoying the chapters about the characters much more enjoyable than the chapters that describe camp events.

I enjoyed Fu's style - it was deceptively simple. You have to pay attention to it because she dropped tidbits that were so easy to miss if you weren't paying attention and her wry voice gave rise to many snorts in the privacy of my home (and sometimes other places as well). I found myself really feeling for the characters and empathizing with some of the scenarios that they found themselves in.  It is also an adept survey of human nature that you don't find many places.

Get this one out of your library!